I Missed You
by lemonygoodness1998
Summary: Chihiro and Haku are reunited at last


It had been six years. Six. Whole. Years.

Chihiro sat in the back of the class staring out the window at the changing leaves. She wasn't paying attention to the teacher; she already knew the material, anyway. She studied constantly, mostly to get her head to shut up. In every unoccupied moment, visions of spirits and brightly-colored foods and piercing green eyes filled her mind.

The Spirit World.

"Chihiro!" the teacher jolted her from her musings. "What is the answer to number seven?"

"Four pi over the square root of two," she answered unhesitatingly. Mr. Juhuvi's jaw clenched in annoyance; she had gotten it right again, even without listening to the lecture. He left her alone for the remainder of the period.

When the bell rang Chihiro swiftly gathered her things and left the classroom. Calculus had been the final period of the day, so she shoved her books into her backpack and headed for the bike racks at the front of the school. Once she arrived she placed the light backpack in the front basket and prepared to mount her bike.

"What's up, freakshow?" a girl laughed in passing. Chihiro merely gritted her teeth and took it; it wasn't her problem that Juki Latuna was mean. The girl passed and headed to a small group of other girls, then left the front courtyard. Chihiro got on her bike and began to pedal away.

Left down the driveway, right down the tree-lined street, leaving the cursed brick building behind. Along the left side of the road were stacked several little spirit shrines.

_"__They look like little houses," Chihiro commented._

_ "__They're shrines," corrected her mother. "Some people think little spirits live there." Her father continued to wind down the forest path that would certainly take them to nowhere. Nowhere but lost._

Chihiro shook her head and pedaled faster, hoping that the wind rushing through her hair would clear her mind of the Spirit World, at least for a moment.

_Yubaba hooked a finger and pulled the girl forward and through several sets of doors. Air rippled through the roots of Chihiro's hair as she was propelled down the long hallway, doors after doors closing loudly behind her._

Faster, nearly all thoughts drowned out by the roar of the wind past her ears, through the leaves that lay crumbling on the ground. Her eyes stung with air and tears unshed, her legs burned with energy, her hands clenched in determination and anger. But as she accelerated further she heard an extra rustle in the trees, like a column of wind shooting through the leaves. She, just for a moment, imagined it was him coming for her.

She suddenly swerved to the left and up a winding country road, legs pumping harder than ever to ascend the rocky hillside. This was where it had all started six years ago, with her pink bouquet of flowers and her father getting lost up this road and the car nearly crashing into the spirit-shaped pillar in front of the tunnel. She saw the shrines, some occupied with tiny soot spirits who looked at her expectantly. But Chihiro didn't stop. Not today. Today she was going to do it. Today she was going to the tunnel.

Through scratching branches, through tall, overgrown grass, through her own frustrations Chihiro continued up the path until she nearly collided with the squat little spirit column. Dropping her bike she collapsed against it, finally letting go of the tears she had held in for the past few years. She clung to the column, as if begging for it itself to return her.

"Please," she whimpered. "Please let me go back."

No wind pulled her in. The building didn't moan. She was still trapped in the human world.

"_Haku_," she whispered hoarsely before crying harder. He had promised he would find her. And it had been six years.

Six. Whole. Years.

He could feel her in his bones. He knew she always placed food in the shrines, but she had never come back to the tunnel. Not since the day he had let her go.

He slammed his fist against his desk. He had let her go, and he had regretted it every day of his life since. It had been foolish to follow her back from school that day, he knew, but he just had to see her again. And now he felt her trying to enter to Spirit World again, and he was so tempted... But she couldn't come back. She needed to live a normal, human life. He wanted her to live a fully, happy life, and she could only do that in the human world.

But then she said his name.

He was gone before Lin could convince him otherwise, before Yubaba could command him not to go. He simply jumped out of his window and flew to the tunnel where, he knew, she was on the other side.

He turned back to his human form when he reached the meadow. And he ran. He ran as fast as his feet could carry him, nearly crying from want, from need. When he reached the end of the tunnel he found Chihiro slumped against the column which protected the entrance to the tunnel, sobbing her heart out.

"_Chihiro_," he hoarsely whispered her name. She looked up.

"Haku!" She scrambled to her feet and ran into his arms.

That was when Haku broke. He cried quietly into her hair and kissed the top of her head.

"I missed you so much," she said into his chest.

"I missed you, too," replied Haku. "More than you can ever know." She pulled back and smiled through her tears.

"I think I might have an idea."

He kissed her.


End file.
